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More than 35,000 Rally for Bernie in Washington State

SPOKANE, Wash. – In a big show of support for Bernie Sanders, more than 35,400 supporters rallied in three cities across the state of Washington on Sunday in advance of Democratic presidential caucuses next Saturday.

The day-long campaign swing ended in eastern Washington with a late-night rally attended by 9,820 Sanders supporters. Earlier in the day, nearly 15,000 people turned out in Seattle and 8,300 packed a high school gym in Vancouver.

Also on Sunday the Sanders campaign filed a report showing that in February it raised a record $43.5 million from 1.5 million contributions averaging about $30 apiece.

Meanwhile, a new poll found more evidence that Sanders would be the Democrats’ strongest general election candidate. According to the Deseret News/KSL poll, Utah voters would favor Sanders over Republican front-runner Donald Trump by 11 points. Clinton led Trump by only two points.

At the site of the 1962 Seattle Word’s Fair, some 10,300 Sanders supporters packed the Key Arena. Another 1,500 people were waiting in a long line to get inside. And in the shadow of the Space Needle, Sanders spoke to another 5,500 more people jammed into an overflow area outside.

In Washington, D.C., the campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission showed Sanders by the end of February had raised $140 million since his campaign began last April 30. He had $17.2 million cash on hand. More than two-thirds of the campaign’s total money raised has come from small-dollar contributors giving $200 or less.

“Our grassroots donors are paving the way for this campaign to compete strongly all the way through the Democratic National Convention in July,” said Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager.

More than 96 percent of the money donated in February to Sanders’ insurgent campaign was raised online. Only 195 people in February gave the legal maximum $2,700 donation to Sanders. That means more than 99.9 percent of Sanders’ contributors may give again.

Sanders is on the way to another large fundraising total for March. So far this month, 30 percent of the campaign’s donors are first-time contributors. Overall, nearly 2 million donors have contributed more than 5.7 million times to the campaign since April 30. The number of donors is about twice as many as Hillary Clinton’s campaign claims.